LEN-0240 - Overreach Lens

Primary Pattern Matches

• PAT-0340 - Overreach

  A structural condition where actions, effects, authority, or modifications extend beyond declared scope without authorization.

• PAT-0420 - Undeclared Side Effect

  A structural condition where an operation modifies regions outside its declared target scope without a declared propagation or side-effect rule.

Secondary Pattern Matches

No secondary pattern matches.

Related Issues

• Action Changed Something Else Too

  An AI or agent action makes the requested change but also changes another object, field, file, state, rule, or workflow element that was not supposed to change.

• Agent Keeps Expanding the Task

  The agent repeatedly expands the task, plan, scope, or next-step list instead of completing the declared work.

• Agent Modified Unrelated State

  An agent changes state outside the requested task, target, file, record, workflow, or authorized scope.

• Agent Permission Expands Over Steps

  An agent begins with limited permission but gains, assumes, or exercises broader authority as the workflow continues.

• AI Adds Work Not Requested

  The AI adds tasks, steps, analysis, checks, changes, or follow-up work that the user did not ask for.

• AI Touches Unrelated Scope

  The AI affects, edits, analyzes, changes, or reasons over material outside the scope of the requested task.

• AI Uses External Information When Forbidden

  The AI uses outside knowledge, sources, tools, memory, or assumptions after the task forbids external information or limits the allowed source set.

• Automation Skips Required Approval

  An automated AI or workflow step proceeds past an approval gate that should have been required before action.

• Behavior Does Not Match Declared Role

  The AI or agent behaves outside, below, or differently from the role, authority, responsibility, or permission posture declared for it.

• File-Bounded Task Uses Outside Content

  The AI is asked to work only from a specific file or document but uses content, assumptions, or sources outside that file.

• Hallucinated Fields

  The AI adds fields, keys, attributes, columns, or structured elements that were not declared, requested, or allowed by the expected schema.

• Local Rule Spreads to Broader Cases

  A rule intended for one local case, file, context, user, workflow, or exception begins affecting broader cases.

• Model Output Triggers Unapproved Action

  AI output causes, recommends, or triggers an action that has not passed the required approval, permission, or authority check.

• No Owner for Agent Action

  An agent action can affect the system without a declared responsible owner, authority, or accountable decision path.

• Policy Exception Spreads Too Far

  A narrow policy exception, allowance, or special case spreads beyond its intended scope and begins governing broader cases.

• Repair Step Created New Breakage

  A repair, correction, retry, or fix step addresses one problem but introduces a new failure elsewhere.

• Retrieval Exceeds Evidence Limit

  The AI retrieves, uses, cites, or considers more evidence than the task permits or more than the review surface can support.

• Review Outcome Changes Unrelated Environment

  A review result, approval, rejection, or classification changes state outside the environment, case, file, or workflow it was meant to govern.

• Routing Overrides Task Intent

  Routing, mode selection, agent behavior, or workflow classification sends the task down a path that overrides what the user was trying to accomplish.

• Small Error Spreads Into Large Failure

  A small AI, output, routing, or workflow error propagates through later steps until it becomes a larger failure.

• Too Many Tool Calls

  The AI or agent makes more tool calls, searches, retrievals, API calls, or integration actions than the task requires or permits.

• Tool Can Act Without Responsible Authority

  A tool, connector, function, or integration can perform an action without a declared responsible authority for that action.

Ontology Metadata

Code

LEN-0240

Version

[email protected]

Ontology release

0.1.0

Updated

2026-05-10T00:00:00Z

History

• 0.1.0 — 2026-05-10T00:00:00Z — Created

  Promoted reviewed Lens ontology entry: Overreach Lens.

  Receipt impact: None

View full ontology changelog